


Oaths

by Writegirl



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman Begins (2005), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gen, Pre-Canon, Talia al Ghul & Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writegirl/pseuds/Writegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was her friend, her protector, the deepest shadow in the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Talia forced her fingers to remain slack on the door. “Tell Bane that the League of Shadows sends its regards, and that the dark is full of wonders.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Oaths

The only nights she could truly sleep were those when he was near. 

Talia stalked silently through her father’s compound, using the ornate woodwork as handholds to avoid detection. Too much time had passed since she felt the smooth wood beneath her fingers, since she smelled the combination of oil and herbs that burned in the lamps. She moved quiet as a shadow through the winding corridors until she reached her target. The door was like any other surrounding it; the last in a line that marched down a low hallway. She waited before it, listening for any movement within. When she was satisfied she lifted the bolt, and it opened at the small pressure of her hand. 

The single room was dark but she could make out his form in the moonlight that slipped through the wooden shutters. He slept facing the door, his back tucked to the wall as he had every night in her memory. She took a moment to examine him, eyes trailing over his sleeping form. The ventilator was different now, more compact; no tubes dangled over the thin pallet to canisters of analgesic as they once had. His breath was a slight hiss that covered the sound of her approaching feet. She knelt at the bedside and reached up to brush a hand over Bane’s scalp, running her fingers delicately beneath the straps that held his newest ventilator in place. 

Bane didn’t move. “You should be sleeping, little one. And miles yet from this place.” Despite the new hardware his voice held the same lilting tone it always had. 

“I’m just glad to be home.” For nine years she lived without his presence, tucked away in boarding schools and university pursuing the education her father insisted was necessary. Nine years spent sleeping with knives beneath her pillows, waking at the slightest sound and checking every shadow. “Father said the latest surgery was more successful than the others.” 

There was the metallic sound of his sigh, then the shuffle of movement. A few flicks of a lighter and the lamp lit, casting the room in a bronze glow. She smiled when he sat up. 

“You could not wait until morning, child?” 

Talia could hear the teasing lilt in his voice. “No,” she answered simply. “I know I was supposed to be here tomorrow, but there was…trouble.” 

“The kind of trouble that led to you climbing your way up the mountain, alone and unassisted in darkness.” His head cocked to the side as he spoke, eyes glittering in the scant light. 

She peered at him. “I felt someone watching me tonight. I knew it was you.” 

His laughter echoed through the room. “And I knew you would balk at your father presuming you would need an escort.” 

“As if I needed one.”Talia settled back onto her heels, looking up at him. 

Bane leaned forward, moves slow, controlled, and she could see pain pull at his eyes. “Be sure to let Ra’s know when he awakes.” He leaned back. “Did anyone notice your arrival?” 

“Balack will wake up with a headache in an hour or so,” she said slyly. “Father should never have let him be on watch alone.” 

Something flickered behind his eyes. “Your father decreed his normal partner still too weak to man the boundaries.” 

Talia sobered. “May I see? Please?” 

Bane gave her a searching look before standing and turning. The line of his spine was marred with scar tissue from numerous surgeries. She could recall each one: the days stretching into weeks as she waited for word that he survived. The hope that this time he would be better. Above his thin sleeping trousers she saw the newest stretch of scars, still red and swollen. She settled her hand above them. “The pain has lessened?” 

“Enough.” 

“But you must still wear the ventilator.” 

Bane turned and sat on the floor across from her. “The pain is lessened, which is more than I had hoped for after so many failures. I require less of the medicine to function. But enough of me. You have been gone a long time, child.” 

“Longer than I planned. I can thank my father for that.” She hadn’t wanted to leave but he gave her no choice, shoving her onto a cargo plane with the promise that others would be waiting when it landed. 

“He gave you what every father should give their children: a chance to be more.” 

“I don’t want to be more.” 

“And yet you are.” Bane struggled up from the floor, waving away her helping hand, and settled back onto his bed. “He is proud of you, child. With every report of your intelligence, of your goals, that pride grew. However you feel about it, he has given you a future that does not involve death and pain, and I cannot be sorry about that.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Now go, Talia. Your father will be less than pleased at this latest mischief.” 

 

“Do you find him appealing?” 

Talia glanced down at the man her father favored. Bruce Wayne was wealthy, intelligent, born with everything it had taken her father near a lifetime to acquire. He turned his back on that, on his power and privilege, to wander the world as one of the nameless masses. How he found himself on their lonely mountain her father would not say but he had taken an interest in the man that Talia had never seen before. There was something about him, something in the single-mindedness with which he pursued his goal that gave her pause. Bruce Wayne trained with the dedication of a zealot, with the fire of one born into the League of Shadows. Since coming to their home he had yet to stop, finding his limits and pushing past them. “He is interesting,” she answered. 

Her father chuckled. “Only interesting?” 

His tone made her turn. “He fights as if every assailant has done him personal injury,” she replied, leaning away from the wooden screen that obscured the balcony. “As if his very soul depends on it.” 

“In some ways it does,” he held his arm out to her, sighed when she refused to move. “He has known pain, and loss. They carve a hollow in his center, one that he seeks to fill with vengeance.” 

Talia looked again at the man. He moved fluidly from one attacker to another, never stopping in a dance as beautiful as he was deadly. “Vengeance will not satisfy him.” 

“Perhaps we can give him more than that.” 

His words made her turn to him with a frown. “What are you plotting?” 

Her father smiled. “Planning, not plotting, my child. Will I see you for dinner?” 

She raised her eyebrow in response. 

"One day, you will give me an answer I wish to hear," Henri told her. "And on that day I will not know whether to laugh or weep." 

When he left Bane slipped onto the balcony. His presence eased some of the tension from her shoulders, but not all. “You are angry.” 

Talia wrapped her arms around herself. “He is up to something." She lifted her chin to the door. "He is always up to something.” 

The skin around Bane’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “You have escaped worse than your father’s schemes.” 

She made a small sound and turned back to her father’s protégé. He stood in the center of the ring alone, hands still clenched with the heat of battle. As if sensing her gaze he looked up, eyes scanning the wooden screen before stalking away. 

“He is strong,” Bane mused. “Once his rage is harnessed properly he will do great things.” 

“As a tool of my father.” 

“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “Perhaps not. The world does not turn on your father’s whims, child.” 

Talia smirked. “And it has been years since I was a child.” 

He was smiling, she could tell by his eyes. “So you keep reminding me. Come,” he said as he turned to the door. “It is time to see what you remember, and what you must relearn.” 

A small knife embedded itself in the wood near his head. “I have forgotten nothing.” 

He pulled the blade free of the jamb and turned it is in hands. “Impressive, but that is just the start.” 

 

“No.” 

Her father said nothing in response. 

His quiet fueled her rage. “I am not a whore to be paraded before some spoiled child-“ 

“I have never thought you a whore,” Ras’ voice was tight. “I want only what is best for you.” 

She spun away from him, eyes scanning the intricate scrollwork on the wall before her. Talia hated the small room that her father used as his office. Unlike the rest of the compound she had no fond memories of this place. It was there that she was taken to be punished. There where she had to face the full brunt of her father’s anger, or worse (always, always _worse_ ), his disappointment. Scrolls lined the walls, handmade maps centuries old; texts her professors would have killed to know existed. The oversized desk held what few secrets of their organization that could be dedicated to paper hidden in drawers invisible to the naked eye. 

“You mean what’s best for you,” she countered once she was sure her voice wouldn't shake. “For years you have lamented the loss of Gotham, how it managed to survive your tampering. Now you have its golden son in your clutches believing anything you tell him.” 

“Bruce believes only what he needs to, Talia.” Her father’s voice was calm, an attempt to ease her temper. “He will return to Gotham prepared to finish the League’s work. I had hoped he would not return alone.” 

She shook her head. “He is nothing to me! I have no interest in warming his bed to further your schemes.” 

“Why do you persist in believing I care so little for you?” His voice was raw with hurt. “Take to him or do not, I only want for you to give him a chance. I will not live forever, Talia." Her father's eyes, usually steel grey, softened to a pale shade of blue. "I would like to die, if not at peace, then knowing that I’ve done all I can to assure your happiness.” 

“I am happy." She folded her robes around her. "Here. I’ve seen more of the world than I cared to when you sent me away. Everything I care about, everything I love is within these walls.” 

Her father stood, planting his palms on the desk in front of him. “Bruce Wayne is young, he is educated and cultured, things you will not find among my men. I wish only for you to consider him.” 

“For nine years I’ve been away, trapped in those schools. Learning, as you asked, of the world. I know my purpose, father, and it is not out there.” Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “Now I am home, and less than a month passes before you make plans to see me gone again.” 

“The world is large, Talia, and you have seen less of it than you believe.” Her father’s words were so calm, so soothing. “There may yet be something that will fill you with purpose. It is not the League,” he added quickly. “I know that. I’ve known it for years. I sent you away because I could not bear to think of you following me because you felt you had no choice.” 

“Are you even listening to yourself?” It felt like she was dreaming, imagining some strange version of her father where he cared for her as more than a piece upon a chessboard. “I have seen you four times in the past nine years, and now you are so concerned.” 

“What concerns me is your interest in that monster!” 

She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “So this is your grand scheme. To dangle a stranger in front of me to what? Make me forget my oldest friend?” 

“He is more than a friend!” Her father’s face had gone red in his anger, eyes steel grey and piercing. “I have eyes, Talia. I’ve seen him watching you. I’ve seen you return that gaze.” 

“And that is what you fear? That your precious daughter will fall into the hands of the monster?" She approached him, setting her palms firmly on his desk. "I _am_ a monster, just as much as Bane.” He turned away from her, but she continued. “I was born in that Hell. Lived it, breathed it for near a decade before I escaped. It is more a part of me than the schools you sent me to, the education you paid for. He is a part of me.” 

“Not anymore.” 

Talia froze. It felt as if her heart stopped beating. “What have you done?” 

“What I should have done before it came to this.” He turned back to her. “Bane has been excommunicated.” 

She shook her head. “No.” 

“He left here with only the clothes he wore when he came. He has nothing, Talia. No home, no future.” 

“He has me.” 

 

It took too long to find him. 

Bane made no protest at his excommunication. His rooms were left as they had been at their last conversation. True to her father’s words he had taken nothing. Nothing but the small postcard she’d sent him during her first year in Paris. 

It was another three months before she managed to escape. Her father kept her under constant guard, but she was a model prisoner. After a week, then a month without incident her guards grew lax. The only benefit of being so closely guarded was she never had to see Bruce Wayne face to face. Henri Duccard might love his child, but Ra’s could not risk his plans being disrupted by her actions. As it was she had to fight the urge to return to the compound to slip a knife between the man’s ribs. 

Talia grabbed the door as the truck bounced, jostling her between the seat and the seatbelt. The few roads of Santa Prisca that were paved were made impassible by potholes, leaving the traffic to travel the less hazardous beaten tracks that seemed to abut every town. The one she drove on now was as rutted as any other, red mud splashing almost to the windshield. The island nation was easy enough to enter without papers, testament to the corruption that had crippled it for over half a century. The rich lived in their gated communities, happy to use the rest of the population for slave labor as the army protected them from the rage of the masses. 

This far from the cities and military bases the island was thick jungle crisscrossed with dirt roads. She slowed when she saw three men in the middle of the road, all armed. The rumors said that Bane had carved himself a place among the mercenaries and thieves that used the island as a staging ground. 

“What brings such a lovely creature so far from the cities?” One of the men said in heavily accented Spanish as she approached, an M16 slung across his chest. 

She answered in the same language. “I am looking for someone.” She climbed out of the Jeep. She had a better chance of escape on the ground if the situation soured. 

“Are you?” He looked to his companions with a leer. 

Talia forced her fingers to remain slack on the door. “Tell Bane that the League of Shadows sends its regards, and that the dark is full of wonders.” 

The mercenary froze at mention of Bane, eyes darting to his companions. “I think you are mistaken. We know no one by that name.” 

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the man directly in front of the jeep level his weapon at her, feet shifting nervously on the wet ground. She could incapacitate the man in front of her and make the trees before reason could overcome his surprise. She gave them her best smile. “I am here for no trouble, I assure you. I have been searching for him a long time.” 

She sat in the Jeep as they radioed in to their base and waited for a response. Finally, there was a single, barked command over the radio. “Let her in.”


End file.
